Promise Me
by clair beaubien
Summary: When and how did John find out about Sam? Who told him? Rated for blood and mild gore.


When and how did John find out about Sam? Who told him? (Partly set in S6, if you squint.)

* * *

_Kill Sam? Save Sam? I have to kill Sam or save Sam? What the hell is that?_

I was out in the back of nowhere in Minnesota, finishing up a Wendigo. The boys were with Pastor Jim, about five hours southeast of me. All I needed to do was pack up the old cabin I'd been staying in, find my way back to a real road without destroying the undercarriage of the car, and get back to my boys.

I'd only shoved a few clothes into a duffel bag when the door burst open and a tall shadow lurched in.

_Wendigo_ my mind registered and I reached for the shotgun. _There must've been two Wendigos._

But it was a man. He was bloody and about as shredded as he could be while still keeping his guts in place. Even as he was whispering, _'Help me,'_ through bloody lips, I slammed the door shut and supported him the few feet to the only bed in the single room.

"What was it?" I asked him as I got him straightened out on the mattress and started checking his wounds. The slices could've come from another Wendigo, but it would be a miracle that he got away from it. "What did this to you?"

"_Hell. Hell._" His voice was tar and sandpaper and when he pulled in the breath he needed to keep talking it sounded like he couldn't get enough air. "_I'm in hell. Please please you have to kill me. I'm in hell."_

He was looking at me but I couldn't be sure he was seeing me. His eyes were bloodshot and wild and his hands reached up for me as I used my knife to cut away his shirt. He was all blood and less skin and I could sure understand him feeling like he was in hell.

"You're safe here. You're in a cabin." I told him, but I didn't know if he understood me. "Nothing can get in." _Unless it's a Wendigo on a mission_, I added, but to myself. "My car's outside. We'll get out of here and get you to a hospital."

"_Help me,"_ he gasped. _"Dad - please - you have to help me."_

_Dad_? He was delirious then, no surprise. It was hard to tell through the blood but he didn't look much younger than me, late twenties maybe. If he was calling his Dad, hopefully his Dad wasn't out there somewhere shredded too.

"It's okay, buddy. I'll get you to your family. I'll get help for you. You just need to hang on."

He whimpered and jerked and coughed up blood and grabbed at me with bloody hands.

"_Dad - please. Please you have to save me. You have to kill me. Please - you're the only one. Dean won't do it. You have to kill me."_

_Dean?_ What the hell?

"What are you?_" _

"S-S-Sam - I'm-m-m - I'm - Sam."

"_What. Are. You?"_

"Dad - please. I know - I know you think I'm - I'm not. Dad - please. _Ch-Ch-Christo_. Please. Give me holy water. Cut me with silver. Dad - _please._"

_What. The. Hell?_

"_What do you want?"_

"I want you to kill me. Dad – Dad – please."

"Don't call me that. You're _not_ Sam. You're not my boy."

This wasn't Sam. He couldn't be Sam. Anything could pretend to be anyone and this wasn't Sammy. My baby boy was at Pastor Jim's, doing his homework, eating junk food, annoying his big brother. He wasn't a grown man bleeding out on an old cot right in front of me.

Whoever – _whatever_ – he was, his body arched off the bed, twisting and twitching, his fingers splayed and curled like claws reaching for something that wasn't me. His scream lasted only long enough to be choked off with more blood bubbling out of his mouth and onto the pillow, ending on a whimper.

"Dad – please – you're the only one who can do it. If you don't kill me – _please -_ you have to kill me."

"If I don't kill you – _what_?" I asked him – it – whatever it was. I was pissed.

"Hell. I'll bring hell on earth."

"How?"

"Dad – please - ."

"No – you tell me who you are, what you are, and why you want me to kill my boy."

He gave a garbled, choked, bloody growl, but it wasn't pain.

"_You never listen to me!"_ he choked out, shouting maybe if he'd had the strength. "Just _once_, will you _please_ listen to me?"

"_What?" _That threw me. If this thing really wanted me to believe it was Sammy, back-talking me wasn't the way to do it.

He gasped in a long breath of pain and choked it out again on coughs of blood and chunks of flesh.

"_You never listen to me. Never believe me. Always want me to prove it."_ He reached out, grabbing my arm in a weak grip that was soaked and slippery with blood. "You need to believe me. You need to kill me. It's the only way to save me."

Then a horrible thought hit me. _What if it was Sam?_

Which would be worse – being cautious around something that might not be Sammy, or completely ignoring him if he _was_?

"Save you from what?"

"From dooming the world."

"The _world?"_ I asked.

That got me another bloody, croupy, growl. "Yes, the world, the – " His answer was cut off with a choking cough and spitting up chunky blood. "Please, Dad, please, you have to kill me."

"Doom the world _how_?"

He answered me with another bloody growl and croupy cough that turned into a sob and ended with a whimper. "Please, Dad. Please. You have to kill me."

"Kill you how? Why? What do you mean you doomed the world? How can you be Sammy?"

"I opened hell. I – I – let – let evil loose. If you don't kill me – you have to kill me. Dad, _please._ I don't have much time. I don't even know how I'm here with you now. I just know – you have to kill me. Please. I don't want to suffer this. If you kill me, I won't have to go to hell. Please, Dad. Please. Kill me."

_What if it was Sammy? What if it really was my boy suffering this way?_

"So, killing you, now, here, that'll stop -" It sounded ridiculous but I asked it anyway. "Stop you 'dooming the world'?"

"No, not – not _me. _Not killing _me. _You have to kill – you have to kill – you have to go back and – and – _kill me. _ It starts – it all starts when I get to college. Kill me before I go to college. You can't let me go to college."

"Don't let you go to college?" Now I knew he couldn't be Sammy. All Sam talked about these days was college, college, college. This thing trying to make me think he was my boy by saying not to let him go to college was so far off the mark, it would've been funny if he wasn't choking up bits of his lungs onto himself.

"It starts when I go to college."

"_What_ starts in college?"

"Me. Letting evil out of hell and dooming the world and I can't do that, please don't let me do that. Don't make me have to go to hell. If I don't go to college, it won't happen, Dean won't suffer, and you won't –"

Another bloody choking cough interrupted whatever was going to happen to me. His bloody, slippery grip on my arm tightened.

"_Please_ Dad. You're the only one who can save me from this, save me from hell."

What if this was Sammy? What if this was my boy, bloody and terrified and ripped to shreds?

"Promise me, Dad. Promise me you won't let me get to college. Promise me you'll do whatever it takes."

I put my hand over his. "Okay, it's okay. I'll take care of it."

For a brief second Sam or whatever he was relaxed into the bloody pillow, he closed his eyes and then he was gone like he'd never even been there. I stared at the bed and my hands, now clean of all that blood and gore.

_Whatever it takes. _If this was Sammy or if it wasn't, either way my boy was in danger. Either way I had to protect him, whatever it took.

"I promise."

The End


End file.
